France’s Robin Edme seconded to European Commission’s new high-level sustainability group

Robin Edme has been seconded from the French Ministry of Environment by the European Commission’s department for banking and finance policy. The Directorate-General for Finance Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, known as FISMA, has taken on Edme – who founded the French Sustainable Investment Forum and was vice president of EuroSIF until 2011 – for an initial period of two years. He was previously a Senior Advisor for Responsible Investment to the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, with a responsibility for coordinating efforts between the country’s finance and environmental ministries – an initiative which recently resulted in the pair announcing plans to launch more than $20bn of sovereign green bonds together over the next three years.He will now work as part of the Secretariat of the recently-launched High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. According to Edme’s LinkedIn profile, his title is Senior Policy Officer for Green and Sustainable Finance and he is expected to: “contribute to policy development in the area of financial services/green finance and to the coordination and preparation of briefings for the Commissioner(s), the Director General and the Deputy Director General.” He will also “prepare input and advice on Financial Services policy development, in particular in the area of green finance in the context of the Capital Markets Union and including reviewing and benchmarking existing European and International best practices, engaging and working with international and European stakeholders, preparing policy initiatives, as well as devising measures to promote green finance and their application to infrastructure”.